


simple as a hunger

by guiltylights



Series: and around the sun, we stand [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Whole Cake Island Arc, alternatively a fic titled "feelings about Sanji and Luffy as crewmates", feelings about Luffy as a captain, feelings about Sanji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 09:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16365476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guiltylights/pseuds/guiltylights
Summary: He’d eaten Sanji’s food, trampled and dirty and rotten though it had been. And Sanji knows that he would follow him anywhere.





	simple as a hunger

**Author's Note:**

> [time started: 21st Oct 18, 7:35pm;– ] 
> 
> Originally I was trying to smack out a ficlet about Sanji through Reijuu’s point of view, at the scene when he [SPOILER] saves the Vinsmokes from being killed at the wedding (the scene says so much about Sanji and is so important to me guys), but the fic wasn’t flowing at all, so I went to watch videos of Sanji in Whole Cake Island, and then I got to the point where [SPOILER] Sanji tells Luffy he wants to go back to the Sunny, and well, here we are.

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_Unbelievable,_ Sanji can only think, wrung out and hollowed, tired and on the cusp of believing, _unbelievable._

His captain stands in front of him, gap-toothed in his smile and skin-soaked and filthy from waiting for him in the dirt and rain, and his back stands proud and sure and taller than the sky. Luffy’s hair is plastered slick against his forehead. The awful cuffed shorts he perpetually wears are shredded and torn up at the knees. By all accounts Luffy should look terrible, boyish and insignificant and hopelessly, terrifyingly _small_ against the storm-roiling hills of Big Mom’s island, but Sanji looks at him, and sees only something to believe in.

For days had Sanji tortured himself endlessly. Thinking about his situation, his circumstances, the cursed name of _Vinsmoke_ that he’s always intended to outrun but clearly didn’t do so fast enough, thinking and thinking and _thinking_ until he had been paralysed by the shadows of his own mind. Thinking about his hatred and anger, hatred and anger at the Vinsmokes for what they’ve done to him in the past and what they’re doing to him now – treating him and others like a disposable tool for their own selfish advantages – and hatred and anger at himself too, at the way he’s unable to forgive them for all the pain they’ve inflicted but unable to stop himself from wanting to save them, anyway. For days had Sanji been trapped, in a web of both his own making and of others, until in the face of his own helplessness, he had been unable to run away.

But then– _well, that’s how you are._ It’s incredible, Sanji marvels, how Luffy dispels worries with the simplest of words, the most honest of sincerity. He’s seen it done for others, seen it done for Nami, Robin, Chopper, all of their crew and then some – Vivi, the mermaid princess Shirahoshi, countless others in faceless villagers on multiple islands that Sanji can barely remember the names of. Sanji knows his captain, knows of the hope caught in the edges of his wild carefree grin and of the confidence built into those narrow shoulders like spires of evergreen leaves reaching for the sky, but never had he thought– never had he thought that same faith would extend to _him. Well, that’s how you are._

It’s not that he doesn't know of his own worth. It’s more so that Luffy’s optimism and love are both so endlessly bottomless that they’re impossible to fathom, vast and wide and all encompassing as the sea, _surely I’ve reached an end by now. Surely it doesn’t extend as far as this._ And yet, still, it does. Always, every time, it does.  _Well, that’s how you are._ It’s not that Sanji doesn’t believe in his own worth. It’s not about that at all. It’s that Luffy’s overwhelming faith in it somehow manages to unthinkingly trump it all, beat back every doubt and every insecurity, reassure every disbelief and every worry, and Luffy believes. He believes.

_Unbelievable,_ Sanji thinks again, half-dazed and light-headed from it all, his chest almost heaving from the ease of the knot that had been there for weeks until Luffy had looked at him and grinned, and said, _well- you've got us._ A testament to a love, simple as a hunger. He’d eaten Sanji’s food, trampled and dirty and rotten though it had been. And Sanji knows that he would follow him anywhere.

Sanji wipes his eyes, and Luffy grins at him, mirror-bright and strong. Above them, the sun rises, and morning breaks light through heavy storm clouds; together, they look over to the horizon, and begin.

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**Author's Note:**

> Hnnngh could’ve captured more depth but I promised myself to use these ficlets as means to stop picking at my writing so here you have it. 
> 
> If you liked the fic, please leave kudos or comments!! I have a [tumblr](http://guilty-lights.tumblr.com/), too, so come drop by and say hi!
> 
> [time ended: 22nd Oct 18, 12:21am;– ]


End file.
